On Thu, Aug 27, 2009, howard posner <[email protected]> said:

> 
> On Aug 27, 2009, at 12:21 PM, Antonio Corona wrote:
> 
>> "They must be played with a somewhat fast air [so much for the slow  
>> pavan]

well, perhaps the tempo can be varied enough to get that certain peacock
and his retinue thru the line as quickly as possible; perhaps at a wedding
when the priest is visibly impatient for whatever reason.

>> In this particular case, I would be hard pressed to explain how  
>> slow pavans with the structure of a galliard could be played  
>> somewhat fast in general usage.

it is entirely possible that the copy given to the
publisher/printer/compositor contained a suite of pavan and gaillarde
which were not annotated as such, and slipped thru.  Unfortunatly, I do
not have the music available as I write this (most of my music is packed
up, and the university music library is on inconveniant summer hours),
further, I didnt explore all of the pavans some decades ago, only those I
had recordings for (Yepes mainly).
 
All this reminds me of another dance, one we did in the SCA.  Playford
1651 has a number of dances in it which use music known to predate the
edition, one assumes the dances existed earlier as well, but the evidence
is of course not conclusive, still, it greatly extended the dances
available to us (in theory they had to predate 1600).  Hole-in-the-wall is
a very popular country dance, in line form, with alternate couples
progressing up the line and the head couple having to make their way down
to the tail at breakneck speed when it is played fast.  HAving a
three-part arrangement by Purcel (from Abdelazzar) was nice too (if highly
anachronistic).  But, since we were in theory sme hundred or more years
before it, we treated it like an allemand, slowed down the tempo, and
attempted to dance it with a touch of gravitas.

Well, some wag discovered that there were points where a bored onlooker
could join the dance 'kidnapping' a partner and leaving a rival out of it.
 Quel horreur! but all great fun.  Too late for the period-nazis to bring
that horse back to the barn, not only is HITW a fixture at many SCA
events, all together too many dances from later playford editions are as
well.  Its a curious, but well acknowledged phenomina, the SCA is
creatively anachronistic (Duct tape being much featured in all things).

Practicality and commonsense in all things.
-- 
Dana Emery




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